11 comments:

I'm scratching my head on this one. The font and x-ray gives me a gritty horror feel and yet the coloful modern technology icons have a happy feel too them.

I do not have a clue what the genre or topic of the book is about. I should point out that this is not a good thing. The cover art is the first form of promotion that the book normally has, it must get the audiance attention and tell them what it is about.

I think that everyone will agree that confusing your audiance will reslut in lower book sales.

I hope that the author and graphic desinger don't take this personally, but this misses the mark and needs to be rethought and reworked.

Well, I like that it's attention getting and has a different look to it. It looks like horror (maybe techno-horror?). The dark background and skeletal hand certainly give a dark look.

I didn't get a happy feel from the "runny" font of the title at all. I have to completely disagree with Eric on this one. If I were a horror fan (I admit I'm not) I would definitely take a look at this one.

Oh, sorry Eric. Not enough coffee, I see you were talking about the icons rather than the font. My bad. I think those are meant to tie into a techno-type feel. I didn't really feel they came off as happy.

The Hand of Glory in witchcraft is a candle made from a human hand that belonged to a person who committed a crime and was executed. That's the literal definition. So what it has to do with old fashioned television sets with antennaes, cell phones, laptops, computer games from the 90s and headphones is considerably disparate. I have no idea what this genre is. Retro Techno Horror perhaps? Interesting, but too confusing to compel me to read the book.

Now I've read the other comments and know what those coloured things are meant to be. When the cover is viewed at full size, it's quite clear. But when viewed at thumbnail size (especially on my netbook monitor) they really look like wrapped chocolates. :-D

Okay everybody prepare to faint; I am not going to be as negative about the cover as some, because I actually think it looks really cool. I got the hand of glory reference at once. I like the title typeface. I don't think the tech icons look "happy" because of their colors.

Techno-horror genre maybe?

Anyway, I think that visually this cover is quite strong and I would absolutely pick it up to read the blurb based on the cover.

I like the cover very much. It looks like a thriller/suspense novel to me. Also looks like a techno-thriller. I hope it's a murder suspense... What I like most about it is the large, dripping name of the book. The small media images might have been made a bit larger; it took me a minute to figure them out. But, without any further knowledge of the book's "glory hand" meaning, it would make me turn the book over to read what it's about. I agree that it's a strong cover with likeablity.Deborah/TheBookishDame

The story behind it is this: I like to bug artists/graphic designers for cover material to inspire me on a short story project now and then. The artist, Zachary Lin, had never done an ebook cover before. He provided the hand, and I riffed off it: the story is a crime/modern noir story about a MMORPG player who apparently kills himself, as investigated by his younger sister.

After I wrote the story, Zachary turned the image into a cover for a truly collaborative effort.

BOOKS BY JUDE HARDIN

Please send the jpg of your cover (only one, please) as an email attachment to judehardin at yahoo dot com.

Covers will be posted in the order they are received, one per day as time allows. No exceptions! Please don't request a specific date, or submit and withdraw multiple times in order to try to get a certain date, or send emails asking where we are on the queue. All such submissions/emails will be deleted unanswered. If you want to submit more than one cover for review, please space the submissions at least four weeks apart.

In the comments section, post what genre you think the book falls into, and then offer some ideas about what works and what doesn't. Be honest, but be constructive. Have fun!